


sins of our fathers

by zennie



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-10-12 16:24:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10494825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zennie/pseuds/zennie
Summary: Missing scenes from 2x14: Homecoming. Maggie’s POV. First chapter is set after the dinner party, the second after Alex confronts Jeremiah in the woods. A follow-up tothe light i won't let go.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alex is starting to make a habit of showing up when Maggie needs her.

Maggie sat on her couch nursing a finger of Scotch, the breeze from the ocean blowing her hair back from her face as it came in from the open windows. She hadn’t turned on any lights when she had gotten home, content to soak up the dark silence of her apartment. It had been weird, being among a family again after so long, with all the complicated history and relationships, exacerbated by Jeremiah’s return, two new partners for the sisters, and their boss/stand-in dad on top of it all.

Maggie hadn’t been much of a ‘meet the parents’ type, but like everything else, it was different with Alex. Eliza had made sure they had met when Maggie had been in the DEO recovering from her shoulder injury, and she had made it a point to invite Maggie for Christmas dinner. She seemed to like Maggie, and she also seemed to know a lot about her, if the bottle of high-end Scotch she got as a present was any indication. Maggie wasn’t so sure about Alex’s dad, though, who was either out of practice with social interaction or trying desperately hard to hide his discomfort.

And Mon-El… if she hadn’t been so concerned with trying to keep her girlfriend in check, she would have decked the guy herself. Alex had been so on-edge, clearly trying to be cheerful and happy, but Maggie could see how completely spun she was by the turn of events. Hell, Maggie was spun, and she barely knew these people.

Her phone buzzed, and Maggie dug it out of her pocket, surprised to see a text from Alex. _How are you doing? You ok?_ Maggie had left Alex at her sister’s, with her family, an hour earlier, and she hadn’t expected to hear from her for a while.

_I’m ok. You?_

_Hanging in there_. The dots appeared almost immediately that told Maggie Alex was typing another message. _You want me to come over?_

Maggie hesitated, torn between her desire to see her girlfriend and the fact that Alex had looked drained when Maggie had left her at Kara’s. Concern for Alex won out, so Maggie sighed before starting to text. _It’s been a crazy day for you. You should probably just go home and rest._

A quiet tap on her front door echoed through the silence. _Is that you?_ Maggie texted, knowing the answer already.

_Do you want me to leave?_

Maggie was already hurrying across the living room, afraid Alex would bolt before she could get a text off. “Hey,” Maggie said as soon as she flung open the door. “I thought you’d be with your dad for longer.”

Alex was slumped against the doorframe, her eyes dull. “Everyone was tired,” she explained quietly.

“And yet you drove halfway across town, completely out of your way, I might add, to come here?” Maggie felt a little thrill in her chest at the knowledge that Alex had obviously wanted to see her as much as she had wanted to see Alex. Alex was starting to make a habit of knowing just when Maggie needed her, and showing up accordingly.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. My family isn’t easy to take even under the best of circumstances and tonight… was not that.” Alex gestured toward the interior of the apartment. “Can I come in?”

Maggie suddenly realized that they were just standing at the door, and she swung it open wider and let Alex step inside, hoping her complexion hid her blush. “Yeah, of course, sorry. I guess I’m a little more tired than I thought.”

Freezing where she was pulling off her jacket, Alex turned and looked back at Maggie. “You want me to go? So you can rest? I did kind of barge in.”

“No. I’m glad you’re here,” Maggie replied, meaning it. Sometimes, Alex still seemed almost bashful, unsure of her place with Maggie, and it was endearing as hell.

“Are you waiting for Supergirl?” Alex teased with a glance at the open windows, and Maggie noticed goosebumps on her arms as the wind picked up and brought a chill with it.

“No, I…” Maggie sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “I thought I might be able to see the stars better, but there’s too much light. One of the very few things I miss about Nebraska.”

Alex’s eyes softened as she gazed at Maggie, and Maggie ducked her head, suddenly awkward. If Alex hadn’t already guessed what her mind was stewing on, she probably knew now. “You got some spare blankets?”

Maggie tilted her head to the side, gazing at her girlfriend suspiciously. “Of course.”

“Get them.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes, but did as she was told, quietly charmed by the impish look on Alex’s face. “And a couple of pillows,” Alex called after her as she headed down the hallway.

When she returned, Maggie found that Alex had pulled the cushions off the couch and arranged them on the floor in front of the coffee table. Smiling indulgently, she set the blankets and pillows down and watched as Alex spread a blanket out and positioned the pillows. “Are you making a pillow fort?”

Alex laughed and shook her head. “You’ll see.”

“We could just sit on the couch,” Maggie suggested as Alex caught her hand and pulled her down onto the makeshift mattress.

“Nope.” Alex got something out of her pocket and fiddled with it before sticking it between two cushions. She flopped down beside Maggie just as a thousand stars twinkled against the dark expanse of her ceiling.

“What’s that?” Maggie asked in awe as stars twinkled as brightly and as vividly as she had ever seen them. She couldn’t see the sky, so Alex had brought it to her.

“It’s a star map. One of the engineers made it from the star charts we have at the DEO. Thought it might come in handy if we need to figure out where we are if we end up on a distant planet.” Maggie shook her head at Alex’s explanation. Some days, her work–their work–seemed like something straight out of science fiction. “We’re seeing the view from Earth right now.”

Maggie gazed up at the familiar night sky, picking out constellations for a few quiet moments before asking, “Are there other views? Like from other planets?”

“Yeah.” Alex sat up and fiddled with the device some more until a night sky, like nothing Maggie had ever seen before, splashed across the ceiling. Red wisps of dust and gas obscured some of the stars, but everything was crisper and closer. Maggie was tempted to reach up and see if she could catch the wisps, like cotton candy. “This is my favorite. There’s no atmosphere on this moon so you can see everything.”

Covering them both with another blanket, Alex snuggled down beside Maggie and bumped her shoulder, seeking out her hand under the covers. They were silent for a long time, watching as the stars shifted across the ceiling.

“You just carry this thing around with you?” Maggie asked, finally.

“It’s also a pen and a tablet stylus.” And before Maggie could even tease, Alex continued, “And I know, it’s nerdy, but it’s also pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed, “it is. Just like my girlfriend.” She squeezed Alex’s hand and got an answering squeeze in return.

“You wanna talk about it?” Alex asked quietly after another few minutes of silence, and Maggie didn’t even have to ask what she meant. “We never really… talked and… I could tell you were… I could tell it was on your mind.”

Maggie sighed. Alex had been good about giving her time, but tonight, being with Alex’s family, meeting her father, had stirred up memories and emotions Maggie usually kept hidden. “You have a lot going on right now, with your father…” Maggie replied. “We can talk about it later.”

Alex rolled over so she could look into Maggie’s eyes, her fingers ghosting across Maggie’s cheek. “No, Maggie, don’t… minimize what you are feeling because you think it’s inconvenient.” Alex swallowed. “This whole thing with my dad, it just came up so crazy and you were great, being there for me, but I know it wasn’t easy for you. I, I want to know how you are feeling.”

Alex stroked her face, slid her fingers through Maggie’s hair and tucked it behind her ear, her eyes, full of concern and compassion, never leaving Maggie’s. Tears welled up, blurring Maggie’s vision as that soft look demolished her, but the words didn’t come.

After a moment, Alex rolled back over, dragging Maggie with her so Maggie ended up wrapped around her, her head tucked under Alex’s chin. Catching Maggie’s hand, Alex interlaced their fingers across her stomach as they stared at the ceiling again. “I’ve been thinking, about what you said. About being heard. About…” Alex paused, as if searching for the words. “About how you asked if I really wanted to know what was bothering you about Valentine’s Day.”

Snuggling deeper into Alex’s body, Maggie lost herself in the play of light and in the warmth of this woman holding her tight. “You’ve heard that before, haven’t you?” Alex asked softly. “Had people say they wanted to know, but they didn’t, not really.”

Maggie’s word were muffled as she finally spoke. “Not really. I…” Maggie sighed, and Alex slid her hand up from where it was curled around Maggie’s waist to wrap around Maggie’s head, pulling her closer so she could press a kiss to Maggie’s forehead. “I have not had the best of luck… with people, I guess.” Until I met you, she added silently. Maggie’s grip on Alex tightened, hugging her closer and wishing talking about herself didn’t feel like a leap off the top of a skyscraper.

Alex didn’t say anything, but Maggie felt her head nod before kissing her again. There was another long period of silence, and Maggie relaxed into Alex’s heat, remembering that night. Finally, she spoke. “I was in my room, trying to concentrate on my homework, but really I was on pins and needles, waiting to see if she would call. I wanted to know if she would go to the dance with me.”

“I actually thought she would, that we would go and it would be just like the dances I saw on TV.” Mirthless laughter ripped from her throat, and Maggie swallowed roughly, feeling her heart start to beat faster as long-ago fear washed through her. But the words, now started, wouldn’t stop. “I knew from the way my dad was coming up the stairs… I knew. He came into my room… I froze, long enough...” Alex stiffened beneath her, in anticipation, in dread. “He only got one swing in, though. I was small, got under the bed. I thought, I thought… he was going to rip the room apart to get to me. My aunt saved me. She came in and, I don’t know how, got him to leave. I think… my mom called her.”

Maggie drew in a shuddering breath, tasting the fear on the tip of her tongue, even after all this time. She had never seen her father so mad, had never been afraid in her own home like that. It had been a relief when her aunt hustled her out into the cold Nebraska night, wrapping her in her coat and leaving her in the car while she went back inside. She had returned a while later with Maggie’s school bag and a duffle, and Maggie never saw the inside of her house again.

Alex’s arm was back around her waist, holding their bodies together tightly, but her fingers were gentle as she ran her hand up and down Maggie’s bicep. “I’m sorry.”

Maggie refused to let the tears start this time. “It was a long time ago.”

“Some things you never get over.” The absolute conviction in Alex’s voice spoke to her own pain, and Maggie let the understanding wash over her. Alex heard. Alex understood. Alex wasn’t letting her gloss over the hard parts or hide behind glib platitudes to minimize what had happened. Something in her insistence for Maggie to speak was healing, almost freeing, like maybe her past didn’t have to define her present, like maybe there was a way to break the hold it had on her.

“Did you… did you stay there, in the town?” Alex asked gently, as if she were afraid of the answer.

“Yeah. Same three-stoplight town. Same school.” Images of her high school came back to her, the cinder block walls painted the school colors, the dull grey lockers, and the smell of disinfectant and sweaty gym clothes almost choked her.

“How did you survive?” Alex sounded like her heart was breaking.

Maggie couldn’t tell Alex she almost didn’t. That first day, the bruise on cheek, her eyes raw from crying… it was a small school. They all knew. She nearly walked out and never came back, but she had squared her thin shoulders, held her head up, and stared down anyone who dared look at her with pity or contempt.

It was still too hard to pull those emotions out from where they ate at her gut, to give them names and a voice. To give them power. Maggie was afraid if she did, she would scare the woman in her arms, the woman who gave her such hope. Maggie had lost something indefinable that night, some measure of peace and belonging. She was only now starting to believe she might be able to find again, with Alex, and the thought of losing it, losing her, enveloped her in a cold terror.

She breathed out, and she told what she could get out past the hard lump in her throat. “I was a ghost. Only there for classes, nothing else. Kept my head down and tried not to get noticed.” Another deep breath steadied her as Maggie remembered the times she got noticed, the black eyes, the broken collarbone. “My aunt helped, a lot. She raised hell with the school anytime anyone tried to harass me. She even reported a school administrator to the state school board, and threatened to file a federal civil rights lawsuit. Every Saturday, she drove me all the way to Lincoln so I could go to the Boys and Girls Club there, so I could have some friends. There was a teen boxing group I joined, and I learned enough to defend myself.”

She chuckled, remembering the time the captain of the football team learned what she had been doing on her weekends and evenings with the makeshift heavy bag her aunt had rigged out of sandbags and an ancient sleeping bag stuffed into old army duffle. The next day, she wasn’t the one sporting the black eye and the broken ribs, and after that, some of the harassment stopped. She hadn’t even gotten expelled, because of the thick file her aunt had compiled.

“Did you make a few of the bullies pay?” Alex asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s my girl.”

Warmth infused her as Alex’s words registered. Maggie twisted her head and brushed her lips against Alex’s jaw, and Alex raised her head so their mouths could meet in a soft, sweet kiss. “I love you,” Maggie muttered, thrilled with the newness of saying those words, not sure she would ever tire of saying them to Alex.

“You are amazing, you know that?” Alex told her, a hint of awe in her voice, her hands finding Maggie’s hips to steady her as Maggie slid on top, bracing her arms on either side of Alex’s head. “I just… love you so much.”

Maggie kissed her again, with more heat, claiming Alex’s mouth. She wondered if Alex knew how crazy she had made her at Kara’s earlier, the soft touches on her back, an arm around her waist, Alex’s hand on her thigh. They had barely kissed all night, but Alex had been unusually affectionate, either out of nerves or excitement, and it had driven Maggie wild.

Now it was her turn, shifting to slide her thigh between Alex’s, feeling rather than hearing Alex’s gasp against her lips as she arched into Maggie’s body. Knowing what Maggie wanted, what she needed, Alex relinquished control to Maggie, peeling off her sweater when Maggie’s fingers were clumsy and impatient, baring her neck to Maggie’s teeth as she nibbled down to Alex’s collarbone. Alex had known Maggie had needed to see her tonight, had known Maggie needed to talk, and she knew Maggie needed this too.

It wasn’t gentle or slow; Alex’s legs were still tangled in her jeans when Maggie slid her fingers in. “Look at me,” Maggie urged as she drove Alex relentlessly. “I wanna see you.” And Alex did, opening her eyes wide and clinging to Maggie, her lip caught between her teeth, as Maggie’s fingers curled inside of her and filled her, her thumb taking over the rhythm.

The muscles in Alex’s stomach tensed and her movements stilled except for the way her body twitched with every brush of Maggie’s thumb. Maggie slowed, prolonging the moment, until Alex whimpered and squirmed beneath her, her eyes fluttering closed. “Eyes open,” Maggie whispered as her thumb traced circles around Alex’s clit and the trembling in Alex’s stomach increased.

She held Alex’s gaze as she gave Alex the release she desired, watching as her orgasm crested, the way her mouth fell open and the sudden collapse of all the tension from her body. Tears glistened in the reflections of an alien sky in her eyes as Alex ran her fingers through Maggie’s hair and looked at her with love naked on her face.

Wrapping a hand behind Maggie’s neck, Alex dragged her down for a slow, deep kiss before rolling them over, kicking her jeans off of her legs. The passion was there in her lips and movements, but so was the softness. Alex touched and kissed her with a gentleness that took Maggie’s breath away, like she was afraid Maggie would break into a million pieces under her hands if she pressed too hard.

Maggie had never had a lover treat her like that before, like she was porcelain, rare and precious, delicate and breakable. Some nights, Alex would touch her with such reverence, like, even now, months into their relationship, she couldn’t believe Maggie was real, like she was a soap bubble that would burst and disappear under Alex’s fingers. Those nights, Maggie was her entire focus, her entire world, and Alex would spend hours exploring her body like it was their first time.

Tonight was one of those nights, and even though neither of them had the energy, Maggie didn’t rush Alex as she stroked along her sides and played with her hair and pressed soft kisses to her forehead. Heat pooled between her legs and tension ached in the long muscles of her thighs, but Maggie gave herself over to Alex’s tender ministrations, feeling loved and special under Alex’s hands and lips.

And when Alex finished her long journey and kissed her way down Maggie’s stomach one last time to finally settle between her legs, even then, every touch was careful and soft, the long, slow, deep strokes of Alex’s tongue between her lips, light teasing kisses on her clit. Even though Maggie had been on the edge for what seemed like hours, Alex somehow built her up even further, finding new heights with each brush of her teeth and tongue. When she finally propelled Maggie over that edge, Alex rode with her, still gentle, to wring every last sensation from her body until Maggie collapsed onto the cushions, utterly spent and boneless. Only then did Alex slide up her body to brush Maggie’s hair back and kiss her.

“You made me see stars,” Maggie chuckled as Alex curled up against her side and dragged the blanket over them as sweat dried on their bodies. “Literally and figuratively.” She snaked her arm around Alex, drawing her closer, and Alex intertwined their legs together and tightened her arm across Maggie’s waist, as if she could wrap their bodies together as closely as their hearts were. The alien constellations drifted above their heads while Alex grounded Maggie in the here and now, and Maggie felt like she might finally find a home again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set at the end of 2x14. Maggie shows up for Alex.

A small sliver of light peeked out beneath Alex’s door, and Maggie sighed, relieved her girlfriend was home. Her texts and calls had gone unanswered all afternoon and into night, her sense of wrongness growing with each hour of silence from Alex. She hesitated, her knuckles against the door, wondering if she should have come over, if she was intruding, if the radio silence was a warning sign from Alex.  
  
But she couldn’t leave without knowing, so Maggie rapped three times on the door, loud enough to wake Alex if she had simply fallen asleep after an eventful day. A muffled ‘yeah’ greeted her, and she started to dig into her pocket for a key, only to find the knob turned easily in her hand.  
  
Quiet music drifted from the speakers as Maggie entered. Alex had her back to the door, her shoulders hunched forward like she was in pain, and reflections of flames glinted off a crystal glass as she raised it to her lips. “Hey,” Maggie called, her sense of unease growing. Alex didn’t turn to welcome her, and Maggie had to tamp down the panic as a feeling of being unwanted flooded her guts.  
  
Drawing even with Alex, Maggie watched as she toyed with her glass and avoided her eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly, attempting to gauge Alex’s mood and resisting the urge to flee. When Alex downed the remaining liquid after Maggie asked about Jeremiah’s first day, Maggie had her answer. For Alex, the things that tore her up, that made her doubt herself and everything around her, it always came down to family.  
  
Alex still wouldn’t look at her. Not when Maggie tried to make a joke, not when she mustered enough courage to sit down, not even when she took the bottle of bourbon out of Alex’s hands.  
  
Maggie’s heart broke, watching Alex trying to hold herself together with a bottle and sheer force of will. It was hard to imagine this was the same woman who, just the night before, had spent hours painstakingly putting Maggie back together. Alex had left that morning, tired after their long night but excited for the day to come, and Maggie almost didn’t want to know what had happened to shatter Alex so completely by day’s end.  
  
“Hey, I’m here.” Alex acknowledged her words with a downcast nod, and Maggie could see the shame and the guilt etched into the lines on her face. “Okay? You can tell me anything,” Maggie said quietly, trying to quell the voices in her head that screamed at her for being a hypocrite. Tonight was not about her, or her father, or her inability to tell all of her buried secrets, it was about Alex and, unfortunately, Alex’s father.  
  
Maggie couldn’t stand it any longer as Alex’s head bobbed. “Hey, look at me.” Her fingers brushed Alex’s chin to lift her head. Peering into those dark eyes, shot through with pain and betrayal, was like a sword through Maggie’s chest. She saw the same look in the the mirror when she remembered her sister’s birthday or her parent’s anniversary, and her heart ached in empathy. Her hand rubbed Alex’s arm gently as she asked, “What happened with your dad?”  
  
Alex’s inhalation ended with a catch, her lip quivering, and her effort to hold back tears shredded Maggie. She had never seen Alex break, and she hoped to never see it again. Catching Alex as she crumbled, as the sobs started, Maggie wrapped her arm as tightly as she could around Alex’s shoulders and cradled her, pressing a kiss to the top of Alex’s head. Alex collapsed into her, sinking into the strength of her arms.  
  
Maggie let her cry, feeling every sob rack Alex’s body, and she rocked with her, rubbing Alex’s back and wishing there was something more she could do. Her beautiful, brave, strong Alex, broken and speechless, hurt Maggie almost more than her own heartaches. So she clung to Alex as much as Alex clung to her, glad her presence seemed, in just a little way, to comfort.  
  
In small measures, the shuddering subsided and the sobs lessened, and Maggie guided Alex to the couch. Alex collapsed into her, her weight resting heavily against Maggie’s side. And still Maggie held and soothed, her fingers threading through Alex’s hair and tracing down her back. She gave Alex time to find the right words. When they finally came, they were quiet and whispered against Maggie's shoulder  
  
“He… he betrayed everything.” Alex’s tone was dull and surprisingly emotionless. “Everything. Stole from the DEO. Hurt J’onn.” Her hand fisted in Maggie’s shirt, and she buried her face in Maggie’s neck, her breath hitching. “He said he did it for me.” Tears started again, hot and angry.  
  
“It’s not your fault,” Maggie murmured against her hair, knowing Alex Danvers, so used to carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, wouldn’t believe her, but still, she tried. “Not your fault.”  
  
“He said I had to kill him,” Alex gasped between sobs. “Said he would understand… if I did. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t.” The crying began again in earnest. Maggie closed her eyes and tried to hold back her own tears, imagining Alex caught between her duty and her family. Alex would rather tear herself apart than make such a choice. Anger, white-hot, coursed through Maggie’s veins, at Alex’s father for putting her in that position. She never thought she could hate a man more than her own father, but Jeremiah Danvers was competing for the top spot.  
  
“He said… family was complicated. Complicated.” A hoarse, empty laugh shook Alex’s shoulders. “Like he would know anything about family. He left us, for… for...” Alex was silent, her harsh breathing the only sound for long minutes. Finally, she exhaled, tension bleeding from her body. “I almost shot him,” she admitted, finally getting to the heart of the matter. “If it had been anyone but him, I would have.” Maggie’s fingers drifted down her back, tracing circles between her shoulder blades. “I should have. I… for a second, I wanted to.” Maggie nodded, understanding. “I believed in him. And he…”  
  
“I know.” Maggie swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
“I’m an idiot. I knew it was too good to be true. I just…” Alex sighed. “I thought maybe… he was still my dad. Not…”  
  
Maggie wished she could absorb Alex’s pain as easily as she could absorb her weight, but nothing was ever that simple.  
  
“I can’t give up on him.” There was such misery in Alex’s voice, and Maggie wondered what hurt worse, the betrayal or her inability to let go in the face of that betrayal. As much as she thought of herself as the cynical, tough agent and older sister, Alex had a vulnerable streak a mile wide. Those close to her held such ability to hurt her, and Maggie sometimes thought Alex was so good at hiding it that they didn’t even know when they had. “He’s done… awful things, but I just can't give up until I know there's no hope.”  
  
“I know,” Maggie repeated, tugging Alex closer. “That’s one of the things I love most about you. You don’t give up, no matter what.”  
  
All the anger and sorrow was drained out of Alex; Maggie could feel it in the heavy way she sank into her, and she thought for a moment Alex had fallen asleep, until she whispered, “Did you?”  
  
For such a soft question, it tore into Maggie and threatened to expose the truths she hid, even from herself. She knew Alex didn’t ask out of malice; she needed to know Maggie’s journey to healing after her own betrayal at the hands of a parent. She needed to know it was possible to heal, and Maggie wasn’t sure she could offer such comfort.  
  
When she hesitated, Alex started to push herself up with a muttered apology. “No, it’s okay,” Maggie soothed her back down as Alex wrapped an arm around her waist and squeezed. “I just, I’m not sure if it’s the same. It doesn’t sound like your father… gave up on you… the way mine did with me.”  
  
Maggie chewed on her bottom lip, dredging up enough strength to tell the story. She wasn’t sure the truth would help, but she was learning that Alex didn’t want the convenient lie. “It’s been years since I spoke to them, and even longer since I saw them. I mean, I saw them around town, when, when… I couldn’t avoid them.” Her whole body twitched as the well-worn but still painfully-fresh emotions welled up, and she resisted the impulse to stand, to pace, to run away. “I tried, god, I tried. Every time… it was like…”  
  
A gentle touch brushed a tear from her cheek she hadn’t even realized had fallen. Maggie risked a glance at Alex, her dark eyes full of worry. Alex knew how difficult it was for Maggie to talk about her past, about her family, even though it got easier each time. Even in the middle of her own heartbreak, Alex still thought to care of her, and it awed Maggie, just a little bit.  
  
“It hurt, every time I saw them. I just wanted them to, I dunno, say they were sorry? To take me back?” The arm around her tightened, almost painfully, but it grounded Maggie in the present, and she returned the embrace. Even in this moment, where her story, even her mere presence, could be an intrusion, Alex made sure she knew she belonged.  
  
“I don’t think I ever gave up. I just got used to their, their…” She shrugged, even now finding the words difficult to say. Rejection. Abandonment. Hostility. Loathing.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Alex muttered again, her chin resting on Maggie’s shoulder and her breath ruffling Maggie’s hair. A sigh echoed in the quiet.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s stupid. I just imagined what it might be like if we got him back, mom and dad together again, our family… it’s childish. My stupid daydreams kept me from seeing the truth.” Her tone was bitter, condemning.  
  
“It’s not stupid. I still… think about it, you know? What would happen if I ran into them on the street, what I would say. What…” Maggie’s voice broke and her face scrunched up as the truth escaped, raw and agonizing. “What it would be like if they accepted me. If... if they loved me again.”  
  
“Oh, honey.” Alex was up and gathering Maggie into her arms, the rare term of endearment making Maggie cry even harder. She wrapped herself around Alex, hating how much it still stung, wishing she had found wisdom in the intervening years to offer.  
  
“I should be comforting you.” Maggie snuggled into the soft fabric of Alex’s hoodie, unable and unwilling to let go. Alex’s fingers stroked through her hair, and Maggie’s eyes grew heavy. “Tonight shouldn’t be about me and my fucked-up relationship with my parents.”  
  
Alex pulled back, lifting Maggie’s chin so their eyes met. “Never apologize for talking about that. I asked, remember?” Her eyes were red-rimmed but clearer than they had been. “And, it helps, knowing I’m not alone.”  
  
“You wouldn’t be alone, regardless,” Maggie protested, trying hard not to let a thin sliver of jealousy show. “You have Kara, J’onn, your mom.”  
  
A fleeting expression of regret twisted Alex’s face, and Maggie made a note to ask later about what happened. “They, I don’t know… I don’t know if they understand, exactly, how this feels.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, a tiny smile gracing her lips, short-lived but genuine. “But I have you.”  
  
“Yeah, you do. Always.”  
  
“And you have me.” Her fingers lingered on Maggie’s cheek, on her lips. “Thank you, for being here. For listening. For sharing.”  
  
“There’s no place I’d rather be.”  
  
The hug was long and healing, and when they got ready for bed and slid under the covers, it continued as they wrapped into each other. Maggie let go of the last fears about her place in Alex’s life as Alex’s breathing evened out, soft and warm against Maggie’s bare shoulder. This was where she belonged, on good days, bad days, and every day in between. The weight of Alex’s body pressed her into the mattress, and Maggie knew she would carry Alex the same way Alex would carry her through all those days, together.  
  
Pressing a last kiss to the crown of Alex’s head, Maggie let exhaustion pull her into sleep.


End file.
